China, I love your holidays!

more life updates:

Monday in class we had our second test, not quite as bad but still hard. had to do a presentation on superstitions (which I did once already at Vassar- clearly repeating themes in chinese books). as usual, I totally overprepared and memorized it and, except for magnolia, was the only one who had done that. oh well. then had two more classes- super intense day. 

(couldn't get the picture to move down, sry) Katie, Me, Ben, Magnolia, and Elissa on the island in the middle of West Lake (the lake is behind us)

Tuesday was by far the worst day I've had yet in China (the day part at least). So I had to wake up at 6:15am, haven't done that in awhile, cuz I had to meet my internship supervisor at 7:45am at this place that was 45 minutes away to take a bus to this forum on religion in china. I was late. Then talked to a rabbi and a pastor from CA on the bus to the conference center. They were kinda cool, but it made me a bit uncomfortable cuz of the whole religion thing. I felt like the pastor was trying to proselytize me/assumed I was a christian, awks. Then we get there and my internship supervisor completely ignores me the whole day so I'm left to awkwardly follow people and tag along cuz I have no idea what we're doing. She didn't even tell me who organized the conference, who I was supposed to meet, what I was supposed to do there, what the conference was even really about, other than religion. how I am supposed to know these things? so then the presentation/speeches begin, supposedly half chinese, half english. lies. all lies. There were 2 english presentations out of like 20 total (the rabbi and the pastor were the english ones). And I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about cuz I don't know that kind of vocab or anything. way too confusing. so then I kept involuntarily falling asleep, in the front row. and people made fun of me. but hello, it's like 9am (oh ya, the bus ride to the conference center was an hr and a half, seriously?! why did we have to go that far for a conference?), i'm tired, i don't know what's going on, no one is talking to me, and i'm already exhausted. and the rabbi and the pastor (who don't speak chinese), got a translator for the chinese presentations- not fair, where's my translator?! then we had an awk lunch with important people and they were like, who are you? the intern. what do you do? nothing. i listen to them talk at me and randomly write things. I have no title and there is no structure to the internship. what are you doing here? nothing. listening to you babble while I pick lint off my shirt, pick my fingernail polish off (don't need nail polish remover anymore), and nap. then they give me their card, like what am I supposed to do with that? met one cool person- the political assistant who works at the US consulate, she helps the US political consulate guy do research and interviews and stuff so they can file reports about what's going on in china. cool job, huh? then I could be a diplomat! so I did like her and kept her card. then they turned the room into a freezer and I thought I was going to die of hypothermia. we left at 5:30pm, another hr and a half bus ride, then a 45 min taxi (but it took me 25 min to find one). So I left at 7am and got home at 8:30pm. awesome day. NOT. 

then we went to I love Shanghai, a fun small western dive bar, where they were having ladies night- free well drinks. :) my day instantly improved. then shelter, a club designed to look like a bomb shelter, duh. what else? it was ok. overall fun night.

wednesday-friday (today) was the mid-autumn festival so no school. yay! I went to a good fake market during the day wednesday, got a cute tory burch black leather wristlet. she started at 600RMB (approx $85) , and I got it for 150RMB (approx $22), i'm a baller. and i think it's real leather cuz it smells like it. :) and it has the real tory burch lining. yay. 

then wednesday night (we would have left in the morning but anthony bought the wrong train tickets, dummy) we took the train to hangzhou- "paradise on earth". took forever to get a cab, then we got majorly ripped off and paid about 3x as much as we should have. the hotel was pretty nice so that was good. then we to a rando irish pub/bar. relaxed but fun. 

thursday, we went to the Six Harmonies Pagoda. Really cool, except that it was raining, but whatever. there was a nice view from the top. then we went to the silk market, but we couldn't really go to the place we wanted to cuz the taxi driver didn't understand. hangzhou is apparently really famous for silk. I didn't get anything cuz it was too expensive/crazy patterns. tried to buy another traditional chinese dress (qipao), but again, was told I'm too fat. great. then lunch, then we took a boat ferry thing to one of the islands in the middle of the West lake. the lake is really pretty. 

West Lake (it was raining so hard to see the beauty)

Me at "Three Ponds Mirroring the Moon" site, I don't really get the name but it's a bunch of pretty lily pads

Then we went back, napped a bit, then went to reggae cafe for dinner. I had pesto linguine, yum. except that it took like over an hr to get our food. ridic. then we went to this great mexican bar and got margaritas (first good ones i've had in china) and played lots of fun card games- my friend Sean knows the greatest games ever. He says it's cuz he's japanese, hmmm.... Then went to Cocos Club, lots of great dancing. good music. really fun. then we tried to get some chuanr afterwards (that's like street food skewers) but there wasn't really a line or ordering or anything and I thought we were getting the next ones, but then these chinese guys took them. I guess we looked really sad, and pathetic, and pissed so they gave us like half of them. haha. yum. then bed. 

this morning we woke up and went to the Music fountain, see video below. 

It was pretty funny. Then we took a boat ride with a guy in the back who rowed it for us. very relaxing but we were kinda bored. so then we rented two canoes and had a race across the lake. my team won. the losers are supposed to wear traditional chinese robes/dresses/ponchos tomorrow to class and out at night. haha. magnolia got pretty into the rowing (even though they lost) and made up a synchronized rowing routine, which actually helped them a lot:

Then we had delicious thai food for lunch. then we strolled around the lakeside and played with chinese babies and bubbles. 

Magnolia enjoying the bubbles and the babies with her light up, moving, ribbeting frog bubble machine (love you china)

We thought we had ample time to get a taxi back to the hotel and then to the train station, but it took us 25 min to get a taxi (hangzhou clearly has a taxi problem). then we had to get our stuff from the hotel and go straight to the train station. but the other two taxi groups (we had 12 people) had to get another taxi cuz they had let theirs go when they got their stuff. and they had the tickets. so with 10 minutes to go, people finally arrive, but people got held up in the security line so we all started yelling and running around looking for each other and the tickets with about 3 minutes to go. We finally make it through to the platform, only to discover the train is like 5 min late. so we were fine. but very stressful. 

got back a few hrs ago, had muslim noodles and a diet coke (they are pretty rare here cuz chinese people like everything really sweet and they're all skinny bitches anyways so not much demand for dcoke), delicious. then chinese hw and now blogging! 

tomorrow we have a tea party put on by IES, our program! fun! 

tata for now!